Wyatt and Spenser

Wyatt and Spenser's poems both depict a hunter who temporarily gives up his pursuit for different reasons. Wyatt's hunter believes he has no chance with the woman because of the rank and position of the suitor she already has. He considers it necessary to warn others. Spenser's hunter feels it is useless to chase anymore because he is not getting any closer to winning. The attitudes of the hunters are developed after the chase in each poem. One attitude is developed when the hunter realizes he is being shown that the woman belongs to someone else. He appears annoyed or irritated. The character in Spenser's poem is bewildered. This attitude develops after he chases her, gives up, and then realizes she welcomes the chase. The poets' ideas of wildness and tameness are distinctly addressed and quite the contrary. Wyatt thinks that someone may seem tame, but hard to get control of later as expressed in line 14 of the poem "Whoso List to Hunt". Spenser thinks it's strange that someone is wild in the beginning and hard to get, but later won over easily. The differences in the poet's view of love in each of the poems suggest that things be not always as they seem. One can not predict the outcome of a love situation because what looks easy may not be and vice-versa. This is true of everyday life and love. Representing a woman as a gentle, but wild animal is appropriate in these two poems because the woman is compared to a deer. The deer, although it lives in the wild, is not a vicious animal, but a graceful creature. The woman and the deer have similar qualities in both poems. Lines 5-7 in Wyatt's poem shows that one may tire chasing a deer, but the thrill of the chase does not make him want to take his mind off of it. This is also true when a man is pursuing a woman. It is hard for one to give up a chase, especially if it is a thrill, and the reward is worth it. In Spenser's poem, the woman and the deer also have similar qualities. In lines 5-7